5 ms·

More than 30 years later, you can still run winquake.exe on Windows 11. Fullscreen does not support widescreen but the windowed mode still works flawlessly. As

by 71bw 10mo ago

More than 30 years later, you can still run winquake.exe on Windows 11. Fullscreen does not support widescreen but the windowed mode still works flawlessly. As much as Microsoft has been questionable lately, their commitment to backward compatibility is impressive. I love this about Windows so much it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't understand why it matters. :-)

somat 10mo ago
It only matters if you don't have the source to your programs. So yes, there is a huge corpus of programs where this matters. But there is also a large library of programs where the source is available and backwards compatibility does not matter nearly as much. As a concrete example, the source to quake is available, this has allowed quake to run on so many platforms and windows infamous backwards compatibility has little effect in keeping quake running, windows could have broken backwards compatibility and quake would still run on it.
- divan 10mo ago
  True. It's amazing that you can play Quake even on the Oculus Quest 3 these days.
- vrighter 10mo ago
  if you have the source to those programs, and are willing to (sometimes significantly) rewrite parts of them and recompile (see: wayland, for example) The amazing part is that you don't need to do this in windows whether you have the source or not. I am a linux user, but for all their faults, Microsoft got their backwards compatibility stuff right. Something that the oss world, on average, needs to be convinced it's a desirable thing.
  - anthk 10mo ago
    If it uses SDL (99% of the libre games), you don't have to rewrite anything.
    - pjc50 10mo ago
      > 99% of the libre games i.e. much less than 1% of all existing games.
      - anthk 10mo ago
        SDL was born from Icculus to run commercial games without issues on X/GL or whatever. So, it's actually a NOT in your clause. More like a 99% of the existing graphical games modulo some oddies with Ogre3D and friends. At least in order to be playable under Linux. Said this, the 99% of the games from that era will run perfectly fine with OssPD->Pipewire (install OSSPD, just run the game) and 32bit SDL1 libraries.
      - stonemetal12 10mo ago
        Unreal engine uses SDL, so more than 1% of games.
- pjc50 10mo ago
  Quake is a rare exception. Source availability is rare on Windows, falling to almost zero for commercial applications (for obvious reasons). There's also plenty of corporate internal applications where the one company that is using it is also the only one with the source .. and they've lost it. Quite a lot of game source is lost entirely even by the original authors. Not to mention that even if you do have the source, changing the use of an API can be a really expensive software modification project. Even Microsoft haven't been entirely systematic, you can easily find WinForms control panel dialogs in Win11. Some embedded Windows apps exist in this space as well. Oscilloscopes and other expensive scientific instruments that run Windows XP.
timcobb 10mo ago
I don't get it, I am sincerely sorry :(. Why do we need Windows 11 to support old software when we can use an older version of Windows, in an emulator at that. Playing Quake doesn't require a secure, patched box, and if a secure environment is the point of extreme backwards compat, then it seems like endless backwards compatibility is not the best way to achieve that goal (sandboxing an old, emulated OS, for example, comes to mind as more reasonable). Letting Microsoft play this backwards compatibility card feels not healthy for the evolution of software or the diversification of the industry.
- pjc50 10mo ago
  Breaking backwards compatibility is bad for diversity, because it "culls" a whole load of otherwise working software that is not being maintained. You can see the reverse of this on the app stores, which have mandatory update policies. Regularly doing it basically forces developers into a limited-term license, subscription, or SaaS model, in order to pay for the upgrade churn required by the platform. And a lot of it is just churn. Not evolution, not better, just .. different.
  - timcobb 10mo ago
    > it "culls" a whole load of otherwise working software It doesn't cull it, you can still run Windows 3.11 or 98SE as well under emulation as on contemporary original hardware. If anything, breaking backwards compatibility forces you to run your old software in an "authentic" environment, versus say, on some hardware/software combination tens of generations removed. Like, why would you want to run SkiFree in Windows 11, it feels like an abomination to me, almost disrespectful to the game. I don't want to see my old programs in Windows 11...
    - Suppafly 10mo ago
      >you can still run Windows 3.11 or 98SE as well under emulation as on contemporary original hardware That's mostly how the backwards compatibility works anyway, just under the hood. The OS is using all sorts of compatibility layers to make the older software sit on top of and work on the newer OS versions. It just mostly works flawlessly, so you don't think about it unless it doesn't work automatically and forces you to go into the properties and tinker with which compatibility layer to manually apply.
swaits 10mo ago
And the entire Quake series runs very well on Linux+Proton as well. In other words, I’m not sure why this is impressive on Microsoft’s part. The online games have depressingly (to me) small communities. But they’re still kicking.
- whywhywhywhy 10mo ago
  > And the entire Quake series runs very well on Linux+Proton as well. In other words, I’m not sure why this is impressive on Microsoft’s part. Something funny about this statement considering what Proton is.
  - swaits 10mo ago
    I know what you’re trying to say. That Proton IS Windows at some level. And so MS gets some credit for that. But they don’t. A lot of actual work went into Proton and into making games work therein. MS is a slow, lumbering, monoculture that has lacked innovation and creativity for a very long time. I don’t see how freezing APIs or keeping old APIs around (mostly through versioned DLL hell) as some grand accomplishment.
    - whywhywhywhy 10mo ago
      Building a stable base enough that porting to another foundation just works DOES deserve credit and pretending otherwise is extremely silly. The page was blank when MS wrote upon it.
    - 7bit 10mo ago
      A lot of work went into Proton, yes. But the work was to get Proton working. Not individual games. So MS should get all of the credit that Quake still runs today, and Proton should get all the credit to get Windows app to run under Linux.
- theoldgreybeard 10mo ago
  There are games I have that don't run on even Windows 10 but work flawlessly in Wine/Proton. The amazing work the Wine team and Valve have done can't be understated.

by 71bw 10mo ago

somat 10mo ago

It only matters if you don't have the source to your programs. So yes, there is a huge corpus of programs where this matters. But there is also a large library of programs where the source is available and backwards compatibility does not matter nearly as much. As a concrete example, the source to quake is available, this has allowed quake to run on so many platforms and windows infamous backwards compatibility has little effect in keeping quake running, windows could have broken backwards compatibility and quake would still run on it.

divan 10mo ago
True. It's amazing that you can play Quake even on the Oculus Quest 3 these days.
vrighter 10mo ago
if you have the source to those programs, and are willing to (sometimes significantly) rewrite parts of them and recompile (see: wayland, for example) The amazing part is that you don't need to do this in windows whether you have the source or not. I am a linux user, but for all their faults, Microsoft got their backwards compatibility stuff right. Something that the oss world, on average, needs to be convinced it's a desirable thing.
- anthk 10mo ago
  If it uses SDL (99% of the libre games), you don't have to rewrite anything.
  - pjc50 10mo ago
    > 99% of the libre games i.e. much less than 1% of all existing games.
    - anthk 10mo ago
      SDL was born from Icculus to run commercial games without issues on X/GL or whatever. So, it's actually a NOT in your clause. More like a 99% of the existing graphical games modulo some oddies with Ogre3D and friends. At least in order to be playable under Linux. Said this, the 99% of the games from that era will run perfectly fine with OssPD->Pipewire (install OSSPD, just run the game) and 32bit SDL1 libraries.
    - stonemetal12 10mo ago
      Unreal engine uses SDL, so more than 1% of games.
pjc50 10mo ago
Quake is a rare exception. Source availability is rare on Windows, falling to almost zero for commercial applications (for obvious reasons). There's also plenty of corporate internal applications where the one company that is using it is also the only one with the source .. and they've lost it. Quite a lot of game source is lost entirely even by the original authors. Not to mention that even if you do have the source, changing the use of an API can be a really expensive software modification project. Even Microsoft haven't been entirely systematic, you can easily find WinForms control panel dialogs in Win11. Some embedded Windows apps exist in this space as well. Oscilloscopes and other expensive scientific instruments that run Windows XP.

timcobb 10mo ago

I don't get it, I am sincerely sorry :(. Why do we need Windows 11 to support old software when we can use an older version of Windows, in an emulator at that. Playing Quake doesn't require a secure, patched box, and if a secure environment is the point of extreme backwards compat, then it seems like endless backwards compatibility is not the best way to achieve that goal (sandboxing an old, emulated OS, for example, comes to mind as more reasonable). Letting Microsoft play this backwards compatibility card feels not healthy for the evolution of software or the diversification of the industry.

pjc50 10mo ago
Breaking backwards compatibility is bad for diversity, because it "culls" a whole load of otherwise working software that is not being maintained. You can see the reverse of this on the app stores, which have mandatory update policies. Regularly doing it basically forces developers into a limited-term license, subscription, or SaaS model, in order to pay for the upgrade churn required by the platform. And a lot of it is just churn. Not evolution, not better, just .. different.
- timcobb 10mo ago
  > it "culls" a whole load of otherwise working software It doesn't cull it, you can still run Windows 3.11 or 98SE as well under emulation as on contemporary original hardware. If anything, breaking backwards compatibility forces you to run your old software in an "authentic" environment, versus say, on some hardware/software combination tens of generations removed. Like, why would you want to run SkiFree in Windows 11, it feels like an abomination to me, almost disrespectful to the game. I don't want to see my old programs in Windows 11...
  - Suppafly 10mo ago
    >you can still run Windows 3.11 or 98SE as well under emulation as on contemporary original hardware That's mostly how the backwards compatibility works anyway, just under the hood. The OS is using all sorts of compatibility layers to make the older software sit on top of and work on the newer OS versions. It just mostly works flawlessly, so you don't think about it unless it doesn't work automatically and forces you to go into the properties and tinker with which compatibility layer to manually apply.

swaits 10mo ago

And the entire Quake series runs very well on Linux+Proton as well. In other words, I’m not sure why this is impressive on Microsoft’s part. The online games have depressingly (to me) small communities. But they’re still kicking.

whywhywhywhy 10mo ago
> And the entire Quake series runs very well on Linux+Proton as well. In other words, I’m not sure why this is impressive on Microsoft’s part. Something funny about this statement considering what Proton is.
- swaits 10mo ago
  I know what you’re trying to say. That Proton IS Windows at some level. And so MS gets some credit for that. But they don’t. A lot of actual work went into Proton and into making games work therein. MS is a slow, lumbering, monoculture that has lacked innovation and creativity for a very long time. I don’t see how freezing APIs or keeping old APIs around (mostly through versioned DLL hell) as some grand accomplishment.
  - whywhywhywhy 10mo ago
    Building a stable base enough that porting to another foundation just works DOES deserve credit and pretending otherwise is extremely silly. The page was blank when MS wrote upon it.
  - 7bit 10mo ago
    A lot of work went into Proton, yes. But the work was to get Proton working. Not individual games. So MS should get all of the credit that Quake still runs today, and Proton should get all the credit to get Windows app to run under Linux.
theoldgreybeard 10mo ago
There are games I have that don't run on even Windows 10 but work flawlessly in Wine/Proton. The amazing work the Wine team and Valve have done can't be understated.